{"id":134916,"date":"2023-06-11T15:26:38","date_gmt":"2023-06-11T22:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=134916"},"modified":"2023-06-11T15:26:38","modified_gmt":"2023-06-11T22:26:38","slug":"walking-on-eggshells-in-indias-greater-hood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2023\/06\/11\/walking-on-eggshells-in-indias-greater-hood\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking on Eggshells in India\u2019s Greater\u00a0\u2018Hood"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Before you study the economics, study the economists!<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

e-Con e-News June 2023 Part 2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Walk the pavement.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Observe what is the being sold<\/em>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and where, and how, it is made.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t need an economics degree<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To know what is going on\u2026\u2019<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 SBD de Silva<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ee<\/em><\/strong> records the 5th<\/sup> anniversary of the passing of SBD de Silva<\/em><\/strong>, to whom this weekly blog eCon eNews<\/em> is dedicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When illumination could not be gleaned from Sri Lanka or the current times, SB would scour and scan the world and history to seek glimpses and foreshadows of the mechanisms of underdevelopment, to fathom resonance in unearthing the roots of Sri Lanka\u2019s discontent \u2013 which he identified in the \u2018merchant & moneylender\u2019 system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     SBD, as evident in his singular classic The Political Economy of Underdevelopment<\/em>, was particularly intrigued by the experiences of the settler colonies<\/strong> imposed on Africa, the Americas and the Pacific, to which he contrasted the practices imposed on such non-settler colonies<\/strong> as Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Yet it is from within Sri Lanka that he could focus himself, on the country and the world, reminding that most of all: \u2018We know so little of ourselves.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Know thy self. Know thy enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Sri Lanka\u2019s economy is being \u2018supervised\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

while big power dynamics in the Indo-Pacific region<\/p>\n\n\n\n

have brought the country under the radar<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

of foreign listening posts monitoring its every move<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka is truly walking on eggshells.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 The Sunday Times <\/em>(see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>, Sri Lanka on Eggshells)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Switzerland\u2019s Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (CHD)<\/strong> hosted the 3rd Bay of Bengal Maritime Dialogue<\/strong> in Colombo on 23-24 May, with the Pathfinder Foundation<\/strong>. Pathfinder has been funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, <\/strong>and is fronted by Milinda Moragoda, failed merchant, which has made him the ideal SL envoy to India. Which he is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The Bay of Bengal Maritime Dialogue is most concerned with \u2018marine environmental protection, opportunities and challenges for marine and scientific research\u2019, etc. Who isn\u2019t!? The closing statement at the Maritime Dialogue was delivered by the (white South African?) CHD South Asia Coordinator Willem Punt, about whom there is very little on the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     As for the \u2018Swiss\u2019 CHD, <\/strong>Wiki says it was launched in 1999 by career English Foreign Officer Martin Griffiths<\/strong>. Griffiths is presently a UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs<\/strong> and Emergency Relief Coordinator<\/strong>, under UN Secretary-General<\/strong> Antonio Guterres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The CHD says it \u2018works to prevent and resolve armed conflicts around the world through mediation and discreet diplomacy\u2019. Yet, this \u2018Swiss\u2019 CHD\u2019s Griffiths and the United Nations stand accused of gaming the war on the Ukraine and Russia, and the ongoing blockade of Black Sea grain and fertilizer, consequently sending prices soaring since January 2022! The UN\u2019s Griffiths & Guterres were exposed this week of being behind this \u2018manufacture of scarcity\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u2018Food is the cash of cash\u2019, observed VI Lenin. Indeed, starting March 2022, food, fuel, fertilizer, pharma & finance would be \u2019vanished\u2019 from before our very eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020-21, for example, Russia & Ukraine, together,exported 56.5 million tons of wheat \u2013 more than the 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0& 4th<\/sup> largest wheat exports of the USA & Canada combined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The withdrawal of such volumes of grain from the market<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

inevitably led to an increase in food prices. Wheat futures on Western exchanges have risen by about one and a half times since January 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(see\u00a0ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Women & men may be currently forced to work 15 hours a day<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 sometimes more \u2013 for instance in supermarkets sporting the glossiest global brands, promising diversity, inclusion & equality (DIE!). Sri Lanka\u2019s labor laws however limit the legal working day to 8 hours. With exceptions. Employers however are now trying to weaken labor laws, by \u2018legalizing\u2019 \u2013\u00a0de-jure<\/em>-fying \u2013 this\u00a0de-facto<\/em>\u00a0state of temporal affairs, of unlimited hours, under the pretext of giving women \u2018equality\u2019. They are also deploying such fancy tropes as \u2018flexibility\u2019. The will of the USA\u2019s IMF, to change labor laws, is being done. (see\u00a0ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 The US Envoy Julie Chung, whose rootings about the political real estate are prognosticated as mischief foretold, was found this week twittering of religious love, standing afore the Anglican \u2018Christ Church Warleigh\u2019 midst regimented foliage in yonder plantation Dickoya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How could a \u2018manager of the Governor\u2019s Mansion\u2019 afford to build that church? And why? And in 1878? The year the English imposed the infamous\u00a0Grain Tax<\/strong>\u00a0that led to mass starvation and land theft, in Nuwara Eliya and elsewhere. Of such, Chung manifests cluelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1792: English expedition after expedition was sent to St Domingue<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

to attack first the French, and then the Africans,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

who drove out the English! \u20181,000s of men and 1,000s of pounds!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

English army historian Fortescue lamented the useless \u2018sacrifice\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Sri Lanka has a very rich history alongside Haiti. We are sites of the greatest liberation struggles in world history. Spain\u2019s Columbus landed in Haiti in 1492. Portugal\u2019s Almeida in Sri Lanka in 1505. We have endured. But how. Now, like Sri Lanka, Haiti too has a white \u2018Core Group\u2019<\/strong> overseeing our every move. Haiti too is also constantly threatened by military invasion and internal subversion by \u2018gangs\u2019 linked to the country\u2019s multinational corporation (MNC) distribution networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The plantation system in Sri Lanka<\/strong> also has a long umbilical link to Haiti (Recall PJ Laborie\u2019s Coffee Planter of Santo Domingo<\/em>, 1798, reprinted in Ceylon in 1842, advocating anti-worker terrorism). After the English army suffered one of its greatest defeats, in Haiti, it is to Sri Lanka they turned their guns and pens, from 1796, where they had to place more stress on espionage and intrigue, after repeated defeats, here and there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 US Envoy Chung, by the way, is linked to the planning of the murder of the previous President of Haiti, before which, she was transferred here. Chung\u2019s sighting and twittering could also be a diversion from their more \u2018easterly\u2019 interests, in that same tradition of daily duplicity (see\u00a0ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 There are other rumblings in them-there hills. And it\u2019s not just related to Indo-Australian tectonics (see ee Industry<\/em><\/strong>)! Workers are pointing to the costs of living and loving. Others worry about the still unresolved imposition of settler plantation enclaves with loyalties & royalties enriching stashes elsewhere. No wonder the central provinces \u2013 and central they are and always been \u2013 have come to be known as \u2018India\u2019s Kashmir in Central Sri Lanka\u2019 <\/strong>(see ee Sovereignty<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Meanwhile, Sri Lanka\u2019s media is quiet about happenings just across the oceanic pond in Kenya and Somalia. These events portend further tectonic grating for Sri Lanka. In Kenya, the media is reporting \u2018violence\u2019, while the tea MNCs are involved in exploiting tea workers further under a limited mechanization, which fails to transform Kenya into a modern industrial economy. In Somalia, the US and United Arab Emirates (UAE) are said to be financing the fragmentation of the country (ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018SI leading raid on illicit liquor brewer bitten by snake<\/strong>;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sergeant set upon by ganja dealer\u2019s dog<\/strong>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(see ee Security<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such headlines as this, are classic. They advertize the media\u2019s ability to go to any lengths to hide the real \u2018white-collar\u2019 merchants staging the fraud of this import-export non-settler-colonial plantation economy. No blasphemy is greater than naming the \u2018import-exporters\u2019, especially those involved in the tea fraud, whose main crime beyond stashing surpluses abroad is the monopolization and misuse of vast resources, insistently failing to invest in a modern production economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Their headlines, posing as learned, prefer pointing to easier targets: \u2018Only 40% poor among 1.7 million Samurdhi beneficiaries: LIRNEasia<\/em>\u2019. The moral police are worried, affecting a Malthusian zeal, about the undeserving acquiring benefits meant for the deserving poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The distinguished \u2018LIRNEasia Senior Research Manager Gayani Hurulle, Welfare Benefits Board Chairman B Wijayaratne, US Advocata Institute CEO Dhananath Fernando, CEPA Sustainable Development Team Leader Karin Fernando and LIRNEasia Statistician Tharaka Amarasinghe\u2019 \u2013 all agree. The thing is this inquisitor LIRNEasia, which claims to be \u2018Pro Poor, Pro Market\u2019, stands accused of facilitating the privatization of SLTelecom for a song, and the dominance of US Microsoft in Sri Lanka. This is the real steal<\/em>. The literacy we learn desperately needs a value-added export-quality numeracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contents:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Walking on Eggshells in India\u2019s Greater \u2018Hood<\/a><\/blockquote>